Parliament House!

Today, we went to the city to learn about politics. Don’t get me wrong, but I love POLITICS!!! I love how everyone gets a say in things, and it is so fair! Once I got to school, every single person in Year 6 couldn't stop talking. We also went on a tour inside Parliament House!!!! The atmosphere was full of excitement. We left school at around 9:15 and arrived in the city at 10:00. Once we got off the bus, the other Year 6 class went to go on a tour inside Parliament House while we had an activity book to finish. We also got to see the Centre Of Democracy. While we walked to the Centre Of Democracy, we stopped along the way to answer the questions on our booklet. Once we answered all the questions on our booklet, we walked all the way to the Centre Of Democracy. It was so cool! It had all the important people from the past, including all the previous Prime Ministers. In our booklet, we had some questions about the Centre Of Democracy. All the answers to the questions on the booklet were in the Centre Of Democracy. My best friend and I smashed all the questions in like 20 minutes. We explored for a bit until the teacher said it was time to go eat recess and then we would swap with the other Year 6 class. We ate our recess, and then our teacher said we could go explore for about 10 minutes.

We walked all the way to the Parliament House, and we had to wait until someone said it was okay to come inside. A couple of minutes later, someone came and told us we could come in. We all were really excited! Once we went in, we were all stopped at once because they had to check our bags and pockets if we had anything that wasn't allowed inside the Parliament House. We put our bags in this machine that would check if we had anything that we couldn't bring inside the Parliament House (it is technically the machines that check your handbags when you go to the airport!). Once we collected our bag, another man would scan us with a taser. For a second, I thought it was a gun! Once everyone had been checked, we got to meet our host of the tour. Our host was Stephen Patterson (Member of Morphett). We all knew Stephen Patterson because he has come to our school multiple times! Stephen Patterson showed us a place to leave our bags. Once we did that, Steven Patterson talked to us about the rules. Finally, we got a move on! Stephen Patterson had a presentation to show us. So he walked us to the room. On the way, he showed us the Parliament Jail. This is where you go when someone in Parliament has broken in, stolen something or abused one of the politicians. On the way to the room, we bumped into Terry Stephens (President of South Australian Legislative Council). He talked about his job, and we shook hands with him and left him to do his own work. Once we got to the room, Stephen Patterson talked about his job and what politics is like in Australia.

Once he had finished talking, he showed us a timeline about Parliament in South Australia. It was very fascinating about the past. Then he showed us the House Of Assembly seats. We actually got to sit in them, and he talked about what happens in here, and we all got to do our own voting. The topic was “should homework be banned in SA?” Obviously, everyone went to the yes side while all the teachers and parents went to the no side. Unfortunately, it was the end of our tour so we went and got our bags and lined up near the exit door. Stephen Patterson said he had something to give us. One by one he gave us a bag with a book about Parliament. Inside it had pencils and a ruler. It was so cool! We thanked Stephen Patterson and walked to Elderly Park. We sat and ate our lunch. After that we played games and did some juggling. It was so hot so I finished all my water so quickly, unfortunately there wasn’t any drinking taps so I couldn’t refill my drink bottle. I was so thirsty!!! It was a really hot day so we were all sweating like crazy. We all ran out of water and we were to hot to even play! But then we saw all the kids run up to my ESO we thought they were doing a running race but they weren’t! My ESO a was giving out Ice Blocks! My friends and I ran as fast as we could and grabbed a Ice block from her. It was so cold and nice! I was very grateful!!! After we ate our Ice Blocks we had another problem. Our hands were all sticky because while we were eating our Ice block it was dripping down our hands. Since we had no water to clean them off, I couldn’t do anything except wait until we got to school. A couple minutes later our teacher said it was time to go back to school. We hopped on the bus and chatted away about our day! Once we got to school the end of school bell had already gone so I had to get my sister and meet my mum outside the school gates. I will never forget today! I loved going to the Parliament House!!!